“All of my influences and my authenticity”: The living room at the heart of Linda Ronstadt’s music
Linda Ronstadt can be transcendent and globe-spanning all she likes, but at the end of the day, the strongest pull she is ever going to feel is back to her homely roots.
Indeed, the Ronstadts were a prolific family in terms of their local history, not just with their musical daughter. They were inventors, medics, creatives, and pioneers, all of whom combined to create one seismic line of Arizonan culture. You perhaps wouldn’t know it from the outside, but that one brood was single-handedly responsible for a lot of what we know in society today.
For the singer’s part, that intrinsic sense of bonding to her heritage is something that has never been lost on her, and not least when it comes to the songs she performs. With a back catalogue as prolific as hers, you would think it would be easy to go a bit rogue in certain places, but for Ronstadt, every tune, every note, and every intention has always been crystal clear.
To some extent, that feeling has been ingrained in her for as long as she can remember. As the third of four children, Ronstadt enjoyed prosperous early years running across the ten acres of her family’s ranch with her siblings and parents in tow. It was back in the heart of the home, however, where her most seminal memories lay.
In terms of a musical education, “If I didn’t hear it on the radio, or if my dad wasn’t playing it on the piano, or if my brother wasn’t playing it on the guitar or singing it in his boys’ choir, or my mother and sister weren’t practicing a Broadway tune or a Gilbert and Sullivan song, then I can’t do it today,” she said, emphasising just how much her family influenced her to this very day.
“It’s as simple as that,” Ronstadt plainly stated. “All of my influences and my authenticity are a direct result of the music played in that Tucson living room.” You could see this in so many ways, inasmuch as her career took her to the heights of California or Broadway, it was the heart of Arizona that still keeps her blood pumping through it all.
Of course, this is not to say that Ronstadt definitely didn’t put her own spin on things, but in the sheer fact that she said she didn’t think there was any single genre of music that she hadn’t heard played in her family home during her childhood, it goes a long way to explaining the expansiveness of her back catalogue, and what this is ultimately rooted in.
From Mexicana to classical to folk, many would say that there probably is very little that Ronstadt can’t do. Yet if you put this assertion to her, as much as she may not deny it, she would know in her heart where the true credit for all her massive entrails lies – right back in the middle of that musical living room in Tucson, Arizona.
For this, you cannot discredit Ronstadt in any way at all. She has always stayed true to her roots and has made an unmistakable mark on the music industry while doing it, ensuring that if her family weren’t going down in local history already, then they would be known for their efforts all over the world. She’s flying the flag, but never forgetting where it was planted.
